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‘Flight': Why It Won’t Win Any Oscars

Although Flight was a good movie, it is far too forgettable. By looking at the trailer I was expecting suspense and high climaxes, but instead there were far too many lows.

The character of “Whip” Whitacker has so many layers but only his abuse of alcohol is highlighted. He is a drug-addict/alcoholic pilot with unresolved father issues, who is also a deadbeat dad. Knowing Robert Zemeckis, I am surprised he did not get Tom Hanks to play this role, maybe he could have helped him rob the Academy Awards… AGAIN. But I digress.

I am a huge Denzel Washington fan but just seeing him in this role comes off a little odd to me. Denzel plays calm, cool, and collective better than any actor in Hollywood, but this character needed to be a little more unhinged. Hugh Lang (played by Don Cheadle) often points out Whitaker’s appearance, as if he looks drunk, but Denzel plays the role as if the character is well put together. Most of the time in the film I wouldn’t have even notice Whitaker was drunk if it weren’t for the constant alcoholic beverage in his hand to indicate his inebriation or someone simply alluding to it.

Another critique I have of the film is the entire existence of Nicole Maggen (played by Kelly Reilly). It just makes no sense to me for Whitaker to go track some woman down that he met in the hospital and then allow her to move in within. This was was just nonsensical. They meet in a hospital stairway as they each smoked a cigarette, then next we know Whitaker is beating up Nicole’s landlord and helping her move in with him? That entire sequence was just odd to me.

The two things I loved most about this movie cam from Whitaker’s friend/drug dealer Harling Mays (played by John Goodman) and the cancer patient (played by James Badge Dale) who was just hilarious and kind of initiated the love connection between Whitaker and Nicole.

There was not enough character development in this film at all. Whitaker’s wife was in just one scene, his son was in two, and they had very few lines. As awesome as I found Harling to be, we never really dug into his relationship with Whitaker, he only appeared in a few scenes as well. Even Nicole, she was given way too much screen time for a character we know almost nothing about. This film was very thin and it’s very sub-par compared to Silver Linings Playbook, Argo, Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, and Django Unchained.